


Rebuilding

by dark_pookha



Series: Lovegood-Potter Lunaverse [5]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Community: HPFT, F/F, Fluff, Quidditch, Sisters, kneazle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-05-15 04:49:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19288468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dark_pookha/pseuds/dark_pookha
Summary: Lily Lovegood-Potter has come off a tough Quidditch season made worse by a shoulder injury. Her mother, Luna, comes bearing advice...and a Kneazle.Part 5 of the Lovegood-Potter Lunaverse.





	Rebuilding

Home, finally. The last game of the season had been a disaster. The season had been a disaster. My shoulder ached, my thighs and butt were both sore and I just wanted to rest, but someone began hammering on my door. The pounding got more insistent the more I ignored it. Damn press.

 

"Go away!" I shouted. "No interviews today! Stop following me home!" I knew that made me sound more like Pandora, but I didn't care. I put a silencing charm on the door.

 

A muffled voice came from the other side of the door, but my silencing charm was good and it was just white noise. It blocked most of the voice, but the knocking just grew louder and louder and I'd finally had enough. Whoever was out there was beginning to counter my silencing charm and I was going to give them a piece of my mind; I didn't care if it made me sound like Pandora. I stormed to the door and looked through the magical peephole. A Kneazle's face stared back at me, being held up by a woman's hands. I recognized my mother's Ouroboros wedding ring and opened the door.

 

She bustled quickly past me and sat the Kneazle down on my kitchen counter. I closed the door, relocked it, and reset my wards.

 

"Sorry, Mum, I thought reporters had followed me home again." I hugged her and she kissed my cheek. A fat paw appeared on my shoulder as the Kneazle stood on the counter and head-butted her first, then me, joining our embrace.

 

"Who's this?" I asked, scratching it under the chin.

 

"This is Fang. He's your new Kneazle." I started to object, but Fang head-butted me again. I pushed him down gently onto the counter and looked him over. He was very different than Kaiya had been. She'd been very small for a Kneazle, only about 4 kilos, and Fang was already twice that if I had my guess and he obviously was still nearly a kitten. I lifted a paw to look at how big they were already and he purred as I examined it. They were enormous, telling me he still had more growing to do. Kaiya had been almost a normal tabby colour like a house-cat and only someone who really knew could tell she was a Kneazle by her tell-tale tail and face. Fang was spotted more like a leopard and had the signature Kneazle lion-shaped tail.

 

"I...isn't it too soon?" I asked.

 

"It's been nearly two years since Kaiya died. You should have gotten a new pet right away." She scritched Fang near his tail; he stood and arched his back.

 

Mum put a hand on my shoulder. "I saw how you played today, and your Dad tells me how it was this season; injuries and poor play from your team; trying to make up for it by pushing harder and injuring your shoulder more."

 

I started to protest, but she kept talking.

 

"I know it's not all Kaiya; it's also that your team is rebuilding and you're in the last year of your contract."

 

"Also Gloriana," I said, meaning my ex.

 

"And Gloriana," Mum added meaningfully, in her Luna-like way. I knew from how she said it that she understood. She always seemed to not be paying attention, but when you needed her, she was there and had seen everything, and if she couldn't make it better, she at least made it more tolerable.

 

"I tried to tell you she was trouble, but sometimes children have to make their own mistakes."

 

"And what a fucking mistake she was, pun very much intended," I said. Gloriana had been all sexual attraction. We'd fight, then make up, and the make-up sex was always fantastic. I learned the hard way that it wasn't a good way to go about a relationship.

 

I walked into the living room and sat on my old, comfortable couch that I thought still smelt of Gloriana's perfume and Kaiya's fur, but I knew that had to be my imagination. Mum came in and sat next to me. She put her arm around my shoulder and I leaned into her like I was still a child.

 

"Harry tells me that you've been talking with your sister about signing with the same team next year." Mum kissed me on the forehead. "Tutshill?"

 

"I--" I started to say, but then Fang jumped from the kitchen counter, over the back of the couch and landed on my lap. He had his claws out and they caught in my robes, pulling them forward and nearly over my head as he skidded to a stop. He looked at me with a very feline, ‘I meant to do that look,' and started cleaning his tail, still thrumming with a happy purr.

 

I scritched him behind the ear as he sat on me and cleaned. Mum watched with her knowing smile.

 

"Yeah, we're both thinking of signing with Tutshill. We'd both have to take a paycut, but we'd like to play together before we retire, and I think there's actually a good shot that they'll also sign Nguyen, and it would be good to play with him again." I stood and Fang climbed up me as I did and sat on my shoulder. If he did this when I did my stretches and yoga, it would be interesting. I'd already started thinking of him as my Kneazle. Mum was good; she knew I'd like him.

 

"Yoghurt?" I asked Mum, as I went to the kitchen and pulled out a container from the fridge. She shook her head.

 

"Do you think that playing with Pandora will make a difference?" she asked.

 

I got a spoon and sat back down on the couch next to her. When I opened the lid, a furry face leaned down to sniff at the yoghurt. I put a small dab on my finger and lifted so he could sniff it better. He got too close and got some of it on his nose. His tongue came out tentatively and licked it once, then with more vigor. I started to lower my hand, but a paw shot out and pulled it back to his face, with his claws in. It was more of a ‘please, I'm not done,' than a ‘I'll take all of that,' and it reminded me of Kaiya. She'd do the same thing with fish or chicken.

 

"Yeah, I think playing with Dora will be good for both of us." I ate a spoonful of yoghurt and felt Fang's eyes tracking the spoon the whole way from the container to my mouth.

 

"We still have a lot of synergy, as Belgium found out last year in the World Cup, and with Nguyen signing, we'll have the two best Beaters and two of the three best Chasers in the league. All we'll need is a good Keeper and we'll be set. Tutshill's GM promises me they have their eyes on a prodigy from Hogwarts that will knock our socks off."

 

"If it'll make you happy, and your shoulder will be okay, you should do it, but if it's not and it won't make you happy, you should think about retiring. I know you want to work doing charms research on Quidditch brooms." Mum stuck her finger in my yoghurt and let Fang lick it off.

 

"My job at Nimbus is there for me any time I want it," I said. "But you're right and I'm not going to do it unless it will make me happy, and neither will Pandora. At this point, it's about seventy-five percent likely we'll end up together at Tutshill." Fang put a paw on my hand, in a very questioning manner.

 

"Okay," I laughed. "You can have a little bit more," I told him and fed him a little bit more yoghurt. "But from now on Kneazle food, okay?"

 

He turned his face toward me after he was done licking the yoghurt off and licked my cheek gently. Then, he leapt off and started to explore my flat, tail up and happy.

 

"I'll have to go get some food for him soon," I said, but Mum reached into her enchanted handbag and pulled out a large container of her home-made kibble. As the food shook in the container, Fang came running back in and gave a chirruping meow.

 

I dug out one of Kaiya's old bowls that I hadn't had the heart to toss out and filled it. As I set it down on the kitchen floor, he stuck his face in it and started munching away loudly. I put down a bowl of water for him, too, and then dug in the closet, looking for a cat box.

 

As usual, Mum was ahead of me and pulled a cat box and litter out of her bag.

 

"Even enchanted, isn't that a bit heavy to carry about?" I asked her.

 

She shook her head. "Hermione cast some weight-reduction charms on it that I'd never seen before."

 

I nodded, I could imagine the charms that my godmother had used.

 

I set up a cat box in the corner of the living room and copied it with the Geminio charm before I filled it with litter. Then I put the second box in my bedroom and filled it. Fang followed me and marked them both with his cheeks and sniffed them over thoroughly. He jumped up on my bed and explored it, getting under my blankets and moving around in a large lump under them. I sat down on the bed and touched the lump. Fang made a questioning merp and then raced to the edge of the blanket and stuck his head out. I petted him and he liquidly poured out from under the blanket and into my lap.

 

I looked up and Mum was watching from the door. She came in and sat next to me. We both scratched Fang's ears and she put her arm around me again.

 

"Obviously, I chose well." She smiled again.

 

"Yeah, I think you knew that right away." I kept petting Fang.

 

"You'll be well?" she asked.

 

"Yeah, I think so." I stood and hugged her and kissed her on the cheek. Fang jumped off me and then off the bed and went under it.

 

"Thanks," I said, "both for Fang and the advice."

 

"I don't think I told you anything that you didn't already know or hadn't decided for yourself." She pulled back and we made our way to my front door.

 

I hugged her again and we said our goodbyes.

 

As I sat back down on the couch and grabbed my mobile to text Pandora, Fang jumped up next to me. I took his picture first and sent it to Pandora with the message, "Fang says let's both sign with Tutshill and win the championship together."


End file.
